Firstly, I love this new "steal a skin" ability for the journal! I did NOT make this journal, but I found it on DA and it is made by a deviant. If you like it, get it from him/her. Personally, I love it (I changed the font color, though)
Second order of business: I'm almost done with school! I have two halfdays left and two exams (Spanish and English) between me and summer! Haha! And then I only have one year left 'til graduation! ;_; oh, how the years go by. But I am ready!
Getting happier yet, my birthday is on the 11th, but my dad left for Nepal (missionary business) for a month and with miss it, so he bought me (to my great great GREAT surprise) a Wacom Intuous4 medium tablet. WOAH. My parents haven't EVER bought me anything over 100 dollars. Wow. I'm loving it. (Yeah. just like McDonald's) Exceeeept...photoshop isn't registering the pen pressure. :< So all my projects are on hold.
Yes. I have projects. And like i said. THEY"RE ON HOLD.
Getting sadder...I have no job. I thought i did, but they hired too many people and can't hire me back. Shucks. I spent all day today job hunting. And I've spent the whole last month job hunting. I feel like I'll never have a job again.
Oh, and guess what! When I went to one of the stores, a bunch of my friends were there eating ice cream! Hehe. After exams they eat ice cream (cause they're good people and already have jobs.) It was ok, though. The job hunting. Except for the first place. Where a college guy got this look on his face, ya know, THE LOOK, and I decided he was a creeper. So when I asked to have a job application, I emphasised the fact that I was under 18 and did that store hire under 18? They did. But he's still a creeper.
I was so freaked out though that I almost couldn't continue.
I did. Thank goodness.
The only other thing in my life consists of looking for areas to help my church and to grow in my walk with Christ, writing my story (which I dreadfully want to finish this summer. Then I can get it published and get MONEY. (no, not greed. just helps pay for college...and no job maybe???? >> simply plus sides P: )), and making myself look as good as possible to the college I have fallen in love with.
Wheaton College, IL!!!!
I drool every time I think of thee.

Hmm. Anyone up for an end of journal quote?

“No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion”
- Carrie Chapman Catt
(I had to write an essay on this for English Tuesday, so I thought it fitting)

I hate to start off a journal sounding all sad and sincere, but I feel really dumb after not having updated my journal since summer...when school was still out...last year. Yeah, pretty weird, but I'm typing again.
The last drop of water that finally broke the dam for me happened tonight, when I realized my problem with journals. Most of the time, the point of a journal has been to talk about "the recents." What's going on, the state of one's emotions, terrible, happy, embarrassing events. I've come to an epitome, though. Something that happened over the summer and may be a reason why this journal has been so neglected. I'll spare you the details, but, all in all, I love writing. That's my epitome, something that now shapes my daily life and thoughts. Now writing intermingles with my present habits and passions. Now I know that when I shape my thoughts into words, whether by typing or handwriting, I will not, cannot, do so without enjoying every minute of it, not simply rushing through it.
The point that I'm making then is this: from now on, my goal in journals is to write because I love writing, not to accomplish a minimum of words or to impress the reader. Simply to relay the story of my life.
No, this is not becoming a personal, tearful journal that should be kept in a closet, but I'll write to my heart's desire and not be ashamed of it. Any questions? No? Good.

This morning was very...surreal. I woke up because the sun was shining in my eyes, and it was shining in my eyes because my windows have no shades right now. I put a pillow in the crevice between my bed and the window and slept in its shade for a few hours more. I was still tired from yesterday because I hadn't been feeling well. It seemed like I could've slept forever. And then a thought popped into my head: it's monday.
End of surrealness.
Hopping out of bed, I dashed downstairs, glancing at my digital clock next to my bed before I left. Ten minutes till ten. That can't be good. Downstairs I grabbed my church directory from a shelf and flipped through it. Finding the number I wanted I called it.
"Hi, this is Allison. Is Rachel available?"
"Hey, Allison," a female voice on the other end of the phoneline greets. "This is Rachel."
"Oh, hi Rachel. Um, I was wondering what time we were meeting at Asiago's?"
"Ten. Why? Are you already there?"
I think to myself, No! Quite the opposite.
Rachel lets me do what's neccessary to get ready, AKA: take a shower, and I leave.
Once I get there I order the flavor of soup of the day. Cheesy potato! Of course, Rachel and, well, my youth group leader, Rachel, make fun of me for having soup for breakfast, and we have our talk. An hour quickly passes and I realize I need to be back home. I apologized for arriving late and leaving early, and they courteously excuse me.
My thoughts as I drive home: it's time for the beach!
At home, I pull on my bathing suit and a tank top and shorts and pull together my beach supplies. I'm ready! The only problem is, my sister and her friend aren't and dad's not even home. Shoot. The time is 12 and, I have to go to work at five. It takes an hour to get to the beach, plus the time back...better call work.
Amazingly enough the girl who answers the phone is willing to pick up my hours and my manager give her consent.
~
That's what my day was. And then I went to the beach. Yay I ^^
Seriously, though, life's been pretty hectic. My family recently agreed to host a man from Iraq, so we've been involved with him. We took him and a man from Liberia to a ski resort to see an orchestra with fireworks at the end. The conductor for the orchestra there was ironically the same guy who conducted my sister's orchestra camp, so she said hello to him. In the pamphlet handed out, I saw my old violin teacher was playing in the orchestra and spotted her, so I chatted with her a while.
It was all really fun, but my favorite part was when the conductor talked about each song they were about to play. He was so funny! He always had all these terrible criticizms that people gave of the songs when they first were played even though people nowadays love them! Later in the show he said that he got all his criticizms from these books that are full of horrendous comments on loved music. The conductor said they were great bathroom reads XD There was ONE joke in particular that I was fond of.
He mentioned at the beginning of the concert that it was the second time he'd done the concert, and the thing he looked foward to the most this year was the food people gave him. Being the conductor, people were very generous with their picnic food they brought, and, I guess, one group in particular gives him lemon bars. (ok, this joke does get better)
So, during the intermission of the concert, he took a stroll up the hill of the skii resort and, as he said, it was like a reverse of the miracle: 5000 people trying to feed one man! LOL. ok. I thought it was hilarous. Yes, I did laugh very loud.
At the concert, I also got bitten to death by mosquitos, although from the looks of Siamond, our Iraqui guest, it looks like he took the first line of mosquitos. They liked him a lot. And, being that it was outside, this bug flew into my chest and I thought I felt it tumble down my shirt. I started freaking out (and my mom is giving me dirty looks because I was distracting her from the song that was playing), but my sister says she saw it fly in the other direction. To my mom's pleasure I calm down only to feel something wiggling in my pants. Pinching it, I wait till the end of the song, lasting so much longer that it actually did, to roll up my pantleg to reveal the perpetraitor: a nasty, little black bug. Told'ja, sis!
Also in life, I got back from camp. I guess that's pretty obvious, but I never made an official journal on it, so I felt that it needed to be acknowledged in some way. If only to say that I'm back XD
Sheesh I'm talking a lot. I think I'll take a shower now that I've gotten all this typing out of my system XD I smell like suntan lotion..and the beach. ^^
No quote. I don't feel like it :3

It was yesterday!!! AH! No party or hundreds of people, but it was lots o' fun in just the specialness of the day :3
It started off with me going to get my liscence! Then I did some grocery shopping with my mom...I had to call *Mangoe b/c we were going to hang out, but the shopping took a while. My mom and I stopped for some Wendy's and then got some dog food and went home. Then, *Mangoe and I went to the mall!! ^^ She got some cool pants and two WWF shirts with the PANDA on them. The panda is so cute X3
On our way to Aeropastel I stopped to get my purity ring cleaned as it needed it a LOT. Now it's shiny and clean ^^
I then found out that, at Aeropastel, their jeans don't fit me well :/ Oh well. I tried some stuff on ^^ And *Mangoe couldn't use her parents credit card (which they gave to her w/ a note), so I hope she can still find a way to get her clothes D:
Then I called my mom for the second time to say we LEFT the mall (because she's frantic at the thought of me driving) and she said we had some time before dinner finished to stop somewhere else. So we went to Barnes & Noble! The greatest store on the earth!!!! Yay ^^ I wanted to get The King and I soundtrack, but they didn't have the one I wanted. :/ I also looked for karaoke, but they didn't have that great of a selection. It was fun at least with *Mangoe! Thanks for spending the day with me, hon!
AHHHH, I just remembered that at like...10..something AM I lose my subscription. I *hope* someone gets another for me ...XD Guess we'll hafta see
Also! My friend Courtney made me this sweet poster board with a bunch of pictures on it of me and her She put three sweet quotes on it about friends (as she confesses that she loves quotes! what a coincidence!) So, for not having any last time, here are THREE from the poster board:

"A friend loves at all times." Proverbs 17: 17

"Friends are need for both love and for sorrow." Samuel Paterson

"Friendship is unneccesary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that gives value to survival." C.S. Lewis <-- this guys is amazing!!!

Title says all.
It is summer. Yay! I got 88% on all of my tests but Spanish (91%) and, well, choir (100%, go figure). No more homework!!!! Except those two books I need to read for AP English...darn.
Sorry about being gone for so long. Life got hectic with studying and choir and work, but now it's slowed down. I didn't feel like I had the right to even post a journal until I had actually submitted something XD Well, I did; go look at it if you haven't.
Also, it's my birthday on Wednesday! I'll be 16, so I'm going to get my driver's liscence!!!!! WOOTLES. Best things that's happened to me since...I got my pen pressure back. Did I mention that? The day school got out I hankered down and searched the web for an answer and a driver to get back me pen pressure. Yup. Of my new deviation, composed of three linearts, two of them are new w/ pen pressure. Can you tell which ones?!?!? Seriously, though, this has already changed my art. I'm going to be flippin' sweet, now! (>>, really?)
Yeah, pen pressure is about the art, so that's covered.
Well, I've got to go, so no quote. Bye!